The Last Love Note(68)

Hugh has made himself at home, leaning back in the sand on his elbows beside me, long legs stretched out and crossed lazily at the ankles. I glance at the lines of his calves, covered in a smattering of dark hair. Then I shiver and look back at the horizon.

‘Cold?’ he says.

‘No, it’s more that I’m . . .’ I don’t really know what I am.

‘Happy?’ he suggests.

It’s like he’s a chapter ahead all the time. I’d never in a million years have categorised myself as ‘happy’ yet, but when I think about it, that’s exactly how this feels. Being here, mesmerised by the ocean, anticipating the sunrise, I do feel . . . something. And for so long, I’ve been so flat. This is like a hopeful blip on the heart monitor after a long period of flatlining. A sign of life.

‘Hugh, how do you always know—’

‘Psychometric testing when you were recruited, Whittaker,’ he says. ‘It’s my job to know how you tick.’

I tap him on the arm. ‘Seriously, though. Are you psychic?’

‘Just watch the sunrise,’ he says, nodding in the direction of the horizon, just as the first light breaks over his face. ‘I’m trying to have an experience with you here.’

I stare at his face, attempting to decode what he just said. He refuses to meet my gaze, but the corners of his mouth twitch and it’s gorgeous. Bloody hell.

‘Concentrate, Kate. The sun is over there. Next you’ll be asking for a refund.’

‘You said it was free. You’d better not be swindling me here, Lancaster.’

He drags his eyes away from the spectacular horizon and looks at me like I’m a major pest. Which I am. But then his expression softens and even though I’ve had insufficient sleep for five years and my face is smeared with the remains of yesterday’s make-up, and I’m wrapped in what I now realise is a pink crochet blanket, fighting against my auburn hair, in orange half-light, I feel kind of – well, beautiful, to be honest . . .

‘I’m not swindling you,’ he assures me.

And, in that moment, right there, I feel myself put literally all my trust into one basket and hand it over to him, tentatively, absolutely terrified he’ll drop it. I wonder if he knows how enormous this is for me. How frightening. Is he even aware that this moment is passing between us? Is it passing between us? Maybe it’s some romance-starved figment of my bruised imagination. It wouldn’t take much for me to invent a scenario here and run with it.

‘What are you thinking now?’ he asks.

‘Psychometric testing let you down?’

He smiles.

I’m thinking I want to kiss you.

And I’m waiting for Cam to appear and interrupt me.

Or give me his blessing.

Or announce it was all a terrible mistake and he’s sorry for his absence but he’s back now, so there’s really no need for me to sit here on the beach at sunrise, wondering if it would be emotionally reasonable for a grief-stricken, forty-year-old widow to start to fall for someone else.

‘God,’ I say aloud, as I’m hit with the naked truth.

‘Thought so,’ he replies.





30





The sun seems to be taking an inordinately long time to rise over the ocean, but I’m not one of those people who gets up and leaves halfway through a performance. Hugh and I are watching it together, in silence. Glued to it. We’re concentrating so hard, and so silently after our little exchange just then, we’ll be fully-qualified astrophysicists by the end of this. Anything to avoid looking at each other. I’m dreading the moment when the sun breaks free of the horizon itself, and one of us has to make the first move. Off the beach, I mean. Get it together, Kate.

I’m trying to think of a conceivable version of events where Hugh didn’t read my mind just then, and where my mind didn’t think what it thought. I need a sanitised, safe version of reality in which the impossible isn’t threatening to unfold, right in front of my eyes.

Falling for someone else? I can’t. Falling for Hugh? No words. None.

Although, having said that, I do seem to have words about it. Many, many words. They’re all tumbling in and piling on top of each other in my astonished head as it overthinks this situation, as if it’s an Olympic event. No schoolgirl with her first real crush could hold a candle to my current level of giddiness. Because no schoolgirl with her first crush could understand what this possibility feels like after the depths of hell that I’ve been dragged through. I’ve been to the place where love isn’t gifted upon you gently, but torn from you. Torn from each individual cell in your body in turn, one agonising extraction at a time – torture far beyond what any human can reasonably be expected to endure. Why would I willingly place myself into a reckless position where I risk that happening again?

The sun has lifted off the horizon now. The waves are encroaching too, with the tide. The ocean is coming for us, threatening to break our stalemate. Someone needs to say something. I hope it’s him. I know if it’s me, I’ll say something inane. Particularly as I’m now envisaging those steamy scenes in 1950s movies where the couple rolls around on the shoreline in their clothes, kissing . . .

I psych myself up to look at him. Surely it’s safe? I’m not about to tear his clothes off right here like some sort of sex-starved sea monster, am I? Am I? It’s been—